Greedywoozle

It was the biggest raccoon Jake had ever seen. It was also, it turned out, the last one he ever saw. It was as big as a small bear, and fat. Even sitting down the thing came up to his waist. It also looked like it was sick. "Don't touch the animals," his mom told him. "You can throw them crackers, but don't go near them." But she was off talking to the campground hosts and twenty feet the away the raccoon was coughing and hacking like it had something stuck in its throat. Jake couldn't help himself. Visions of the "How to help someone who's choking" video from school filled his head as he went over to help the raccoon. As it stood up on its hindpaws, gagging, he thumped it on the back with the flat of his hand. That did it. The raccoon dropped down to all fours again and threw up. Jake watched wide-eyed as a great slimy mass emerged from the raccoon's maw. Its neck bulged as it heaved up the wad of whatever-it was and its fat body got visibly smaller as it rid itself of the

By kaiju standards, this Anguirus was quite small. Barely a century old, with a spiked shell only a hundred feet long. Even including his neck, head and tail, he was only three times that. Still very big by human standards, but by kaiju standards, just a pup. He had seen things, though. Like most younglings he was fascinated by the doings of his elders. He watched the great spinebacked King Of The Monsters fight it out with a great hairy ape until both were beaten senseless, and then with unwavering interest he watched an Anguirus older and larger than himself approach the King. Carefully choosing its path to arrive from behind, that Anguirus loosened its jaws and proceeded to swallow the King tailfirst. The young Anguirus knew that the King had a deadly breath weapon, but the older one knew that too. By the time Godzilla woke he was up to his cheeks in Anguirus maw and that was just where he stayed. Furious, Godzilla blasted everything in sight with his nuclear breath, but with

The sign on the tree read "Don't feed the bears." Sharon ignored it. She'd talked to the nice retiree couple working as campground stewards and they said they hardly ever had bear trouble here. Twenty years ago, sure, but then they replaced the dumpsters with bear-proof ones and put in metal food lockers at every campsite. With no easy food to scavenge the bears mostly stopped showing up. The signs were a relic of earlier times. They were too high in the Sierras for thieving raccoons to be a problem, or skunks or opossums. The campground stewards said there were pine martens and bobcats, foxes and coyotes, but the only animals she saw after setting up her tent were blue jays, bright red cardinals and fluffy-tailed tree squirrels. All of those were happy to run after the bread crumbs she tossed. It was an hour after sundown and she was tending the small fire she'd built when she looked up and saw green eye shine at the same level as her own eyes. It was indeed a bear. Its pitch